Aqua Earth Substrate?

[Chimera]

Hey all,

I’m setting up a new tank in Tasmania, Australia. I’ve had planted tanks many years ago in Sydney. To say the selection of equipment and plants here is limited, would be generous. While I can get lighting and filtration online, substrate is proving difficult. I’m going for a 90P (if I can get a low iron glass one here) so I need enough substrate to do the job. My options would be inert sand/gravel with root tabs or try an aqua soil of some variety. The only thing I can find locally to avoid huge shipping costs is Aqua Earth - which is stocked by a local fish supplier at about $60 AUD/6L.


Has anyone used this product before or have any reviews?

This tank is planned to have a few stem plants, various crypts, tiger lotus and hopefully a small carpet area of Monte Carlo or Marsilea and some pygmy chain swords (echinodorus).

Cheers
Chimera

 

[snowballs99]

Never tried the product, but you can probably trust his name/credibility since he would design it for aquascaping.
Your tiger lotus will probably eat up all the ammonia in the soil in like 2-3 months anyways, those things seem to get extremely tank-wide root systems. The leaves do get absolutely get massive when they have access to ammonia as well.

 

[Chimera]

Yeah I found crypts to be the same. As I am not keen on ripping it down in 12 months, perhaps I should stick to an inert substrate with root tabs and then sort out a good water column fert regime.

 

[Dennis Wong]

Also always remember, that when it comes to growing aquatic plants, investing in a CO2 system will beat spending money on expensive substrates if you don't already have CO2 injection system.